Chlorine is used extensively in the United States and foreign countries to treat drinking water supplies. The chlorine acts as a biocide to destroy undesirable microorganisms. The efficacy of the chlorine treatment is monitored by periodic checking of the treated water for the presence of selected, living, indicator organisms (e.g., coliforms). These serve to indicate the possibility of potable water supply contamination. Conventional microorganism detection methods used to monitor the treated water require the growth of the microorganisms in culture media to a detectable level, followed by confirmatory tests for the existence of specific microorganisms. These conventional detection methods may take up to several days to complete.
A more rapid method for detecting the presence of live microorganisms in chlorine-treated water would be extremely useful to the water treatment industry. One possible detection technique, namely the use of monoclonal antibodies (referred to as "MAB"), has now been found by the present inventors to be unsuitable for such detection since the MAB technique does not distinguish between living and dead microorganisms in the chlorine-treated water. Since only living cells are potentially harmful, any test which does not distinguish living from dead cells will tend to give a so-called "false-positive" result when only the innocuous dead cells are present On this basis, the MAB technique is unacceptable for use (as described) in the water treatment industry
In light of the foregoing, the discovery of a rapid microorganism detection method for use in chlorine-treated water which selectively detects living microbial cells would be highly desired by the water treatment industry